October 2018

FOR WEEK ENDING OCTOBER 26

Council,

Here are this week’s items:

Council Follow-Through

- Human Services Workshop – We are dialed in with the GREASE Team and our Human Services Management Team to facilitate next week’s workshop using a new set of tools with our community for the first time. We’ve used design thinking internally, starting with the Innovation Academy, but not externally. That changes next week, when we’ll leverage it in the workshop to design new models of service delivery focused on Sequim’s human services needs. We’ll be using integrative thinking this time. We’ll also have our housing workshop the same day. It’s a big week for us!

- Future Rally in the Alley Schedule – After the November 3rd Rally in the Alley, our next ones in 2019 are planned for February 9, April 20, August 10, and November 16. Public Works will be taking on more of a management role for these in the future.

- K-9 Program – The attached email includes more detail about our K-9 Program and its status. You’ll recall that this issue came up at a recent Council meeting. Please let us know if you need further information or if you have any questions.

Related Items

- Planning Calendar - Was attached

- Charisse Accepted into Leadership ICMA – We got confirmation this week that Charisse has been accepted into Leadership ICMA. The program is designed to help develop the next generation of leaders in the city/county management profession and that has proven to be the case since the first class graduated in 2007 (the current ICMA President is a graduate of the first class as are many of the ICMA and Alliance for Innovation Board members). This was a professional goal of hers well before her recent promotion. The program starts in December with a meeting at ICMA headquarters in Washington, DC. That is followed by attendance at the Senior Executive Institute (tuition for that is 100% underwritten by sponsors) next summer and then a capstone project the following year at a location to be determined. Travel for that is paid for by the host agency. This is the same program from which Joe recently graduated and from which I graduated in 2008. You’ll recall the Leadership ICMA Team that worked on code compliance here for their capstone project. Please congratulate Charisse the next time you see her!

Thanks,

Charlie Bush

City Manager

For WEEK ENDING OCTOBER 19

Council,

Here are this week's items:

Council Follow-Through

- Human Services Workshop Update - We have 24 people registered for our workshop on 10/30. Planning continues with our staff team and the GREASE Team. The housing workshop for the same day is simpler, supported by consultants, and fully planned. For Councilors coming to the human services workshop, we are going to ask you to observe as we are after the perspectives of the service providers at this stage in the process. Your value will come in policy making on the back end. We also expect elected officials from other organizations and will ask them to do the same. Everyone is welcome to participate in the housing workshop but please let Karen and Charisse know if you are coming to either one.

- Transportation Benefit District (TBD) Renewal Outreach - David Garlington continues to provide informational presentations on the TBD renewal ballot item. This week he presented to the Downtown Merchants Group. Last week he presented to our local real estate brokers.

- Municipal Court Study - It is nearing completion and will be done by 11/15, at the latest. We'll have a briefing for you on the results before the year concludes.

- Council Advance - We are forming a list of items that we'll discuss with you as a draft agenda for the 1/4/19 Council Advance.

- State Lobbyist - We've begun outreach to potential lobbyists. We are recommending that we get somebody onboard this year. Costs will be small for the remainder of the year. With the legislative session starting in January, if we are going to make this move it makes sense to have someone working on our behalf prior to the start of the session.

Related Items

- Meeting with Nathan West - I started a monthly meeting series with Nathan West, the City Manager in Port Angeles, this week. Items discussed included the consolidated criminal justice contract, employee recruiting, Council Advances, the EDC, and strategic planning.

- School Safety Forum - Roughly 30-40 people attended the School Safety Forum last night, where Chief Crain and I, and representatives from Fire District 3, the Clallam County Sheriff's Department, and Sequim School District discussed school safety issues. A follow-up forum is planned for spring.

- Drucker Institute Work - We will be conducting workshops with all of our departments the first week of November to work on the development of our key performance indicators (KPIs). They will be drawn from our departmental mission, vision, and core values work competed earlier this year. These follow-up workshops should conclude our work with Drucker for the moment. Developing our KPIs will allow us to move into the realm of performance management, where we'll be actively learning from the data we collect so that we can make improvements to our services. We will also be sharing a lot more data, as we collect it, with you. This step represents the last major piece in the implementation of the High Performance Organization (HPO) model. This is one of my favorite videos, showing visually and simply what the model does.

- Senior Leadership Team (SLT) Advance - We are planning a senior staff team advance as well for December 12 and 13. Part of it will be to prepare for the Council Advance.

- Sequim 101, the Neighborhood Plan, and a Community Budget Meeting – All of these items are still on our radar, although we are planning to delay the latter and want to discuss it with you at the Council Advance. We think we have a better idea than our original idea. The Neighborhood Plan got delayed when Joe left but is on my list and will get picked up late this year. Sequim 101 (a citizen academy) has always been on my list and we have some money in the budget to launch it next year. I’ve also got broadband on my list and will get that moving before the Neighborhood Plan or Sequim 101.

- Planning Calendar - Was attached

Thanks,

Charlie Bush

City Manager

For WEEK ENDING oCTOBER 12

Council,

Here are this week’s items:

Council Direction

- Possibly Shifting EDC Priorities – We’ve learned that some members of the EDC Board are interested in having the EDC stop its activities related to the Emerald Coast Opportunity Zone (EOZ). My assessment is that the EOZ represents some of the highest value work ever done by the EDC here, and certainly the most valuable work done in the past three years. We are the only regional EOZ in the country as a result of the EDC’s efforts and we are seeing interest from all over the country to invest here. Our EOZ journey is only going to get better as we see development begin in the EOZs. If the EDC were to stop coordinating the EOZs, it would also cease being an Association Economic Development Organization (ADO) for the State’s Department of Commerce, which would effectively end the EDC as an ADO designation comes with $50,000 of support from the State. The State required ADOs to manage EOZs when it created the program earlier this year. There is an EDC Board meeting (these happen quarterly) next week and I’m planning to go and to speak strongly in support of the EDC’s work on EOZs to date and I will encourage the Board to continue having the EDC serve this role. There is a retreat on November 9th and we will be there to with a similar position. Please let me know if you have any concerns. Barry and I are also in the process of proposing an amendment to you for the EDC contract to reflect their work on the EOZs. When this type of thing plays out with a person (self-sabotage as success begins to occur), it is a called an upper limit problem. I commend to you this great book I read recently on the topic, in advance of a training I attended. Perhaps our region has an upper limit problem? Attached is some of the latest press on the Opportunity Zone Program locally and an opportunity to tune into a virtual listening session about the program on 10/23, put on by the State’s Department of Commerce.

Council Follow-Through

- Human Services & Housing Workshops – As fate would have it, both are falling on October 30. The Human Services workshop will be from 9 AM to 2 PM at Guy Cole and the Housing workshop will be from 5 to 7 PM at the Council Chambers. We have 21 people signed up so far for the human services workshop and another notice is about to go out, this one through the United Way.

- Shipley Center & Boys and Girls Club Meetings – I met with both Michael Smith and Mary Budke this week and we are getting closer to a scope of work for each agency. My goal is to have contracts for service prepared for your consideration by the end of the year. Both would be from the $30,000 contracts for service line item in the 2019 budget. Both agencies can and probably will compete for additional funding through the human services grant process that we are conducting.

- Rob White Meeting – I met with Rob White this week for coffee. He is the gentleman who came to Council a couple of meetings ago to talk about panhandling and other concerns. It was a cordial meeting and we agreed to work on a few follow-up items.

Related Items

- Varius Inc. – Staff reviewed the program that Varius is offering with USGS and are moving forward to negotiate a scope of work. Once complete, we would have a system that would help to preserve our utilities just before an earthquake strikes, helping us retain things like drinking and fire suppression water for our community and minimizing damage to our pump sites and our Water Reclamation Facility. All of this would help people survive and would provide for a swifter recovery for our community. We’ll have more on this topic as we continue to work through the details. We would be one of the early test sites in the country for USGS.

- School Safety Forum – Chief Crain and I will be participating in a forum on school safety next Wednesday night at 5 PM at the High School Auditorium. Here is a bit more from the Peninsula Daily News.

- Shiso Visit – I’ve done enough research on our Sister City at this point to conclude that this would not be a good time to visit. Shiso is rapidly losing population and I know that has a big impact on a city’s budget. They seem to be one of the earlier areas impacted by the stark forecast for population loss in Japan (25% nationwide loss by 2050, 33% loss by 2100). Shiso is losing about 1,000 residents per year and is now below 40,000 in population (they were in the mid-40s just 10 years ago). It would be an expense on them for me to visit and I don’t think this a good time to propose a staff exchange, which would also cost money on their end. Perhaps in the future. Instead, I’m going to participate in the Athenian Project through ICMA that I mentioned last week and I’m working on developing a small cities consortium within the Alliance for Innovation, which has the potential to further pump up our peer learning opportunities. I’m also planning to apply for a scholarship for the Athenian Project, so that should help our budget.

- GREASE Team 2.0 – Our facilitation and innovation team (known as the GREASE Team) was losing members, due to staff turnover over a three-year period, so this week we renewed our facilitator skills (for those already on the team) and trained some new team members. Please welcome Josh Henning (Public Works), George Priest (Public Works), Alisa Hasbrouck (DCD), Emily Stednick (HR), and Darrell Nelson (Police) as our newest GREASE team members! They will be facilitating a meeting near you, or perhaps one that you are attending. All of them are great additions to the team! The GREASE Team facilitates leadership discussions (long term and strategic conversations) within our organization and between our organization and the community. They also are design thinking ninjas as a result of graduating from the Alliance for Innovation’s Innovation Academy this past spring. For more on that experience, here is a throwback video.

- Planning Calendar - Was attached

Thanks,

Charlie Bush

City Manager

For Week Ending October 5

- Highway 101 Improvements – We sent the attached email to Representative Chapman, with a copy to our legislative delegation, this week. We are attempting to apply some legislative pressure on WSDOT to get them to scope the corridor project (we need a target dollar amount based on the projects in the corridor) so that we can advocate for it during this upcoming session. We’ll have our 2019 legislative agenda in front of you on Monday for a first touch and David will talk more about this topic at that time.

- Consolidated Criminal Justice Contract – We had a meeting this week, notes are attached. We are preparing an Interlocal Agreement with Port Angeles and the County for your consideration in November. It will allow us to carry out the agreed upon efficiencies study of the criminal justice system. A meeting to develop a scope of work for the study is being scheduled for later this month. Notes from the meeting are attached. The timeline for the study might change slightly, to be a bit more delayed to allow for more data collection at the County. We’ll have more on that soon.

- TBD Presentation at Sequim Sunrise Rotary – David Garlington presented to Sequim Sunrise Rotary this morning about the TBD. He did a great job and fielded a ton of general transportation questions from the club. Please note that Sunrise Rotary is now meeting at Guy Cole with no plans to go back to Sunland.

- Vision for IT – Sue Hagener just sent out an email that included our short term and long-term plan for IT. Also included in the long-term vision would be a consultant to assist with strategic IT issues. Further, we’ll continue to use other private and public sector partners, including the County, where they can help us accomplish our goals.

- Meeting with Varius Inc. – We met with Varius Inc. today, an engineering firm that contracts with the United States Geological Survey to provide early warning systems for earthquakes that can shut down a city’s utilities to protect them before an earthquake hits. Special thanks go to Councilor Bob Lake for making this introduction. Public Works staff will be evaluating the opportunity presented over the next few weeks and we’ll then connect with you if we recommend moving forward at this point. We would be one of the first cities in the nation to take advantage of the opportunity and would serve as a pilot site for USGS. There will be a local presentation on this topic in a few days. I’m attaching an email with more details.

- Washington City/County Management Association (WCMA) Women’s Academy – Charisse began the Northwest Women’s Academy last week. It involves six days over the course of a year where the cohort gathers in the Seattle area. A press release from the WCMA is attached with more background. I’m excited for Charisse’s involvement in the program, which is in its first year. She and we will benefit.

- Planning Calendar – Was attached

- Athenian Project – At the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Conference, I received an invitation from a couple of respected colleagues, including one of my mentors, and the ICMA staff member in charge of professional development. The request is that I become one of 25 people participating in a new professional development program known as the Athenian Project. The program runs for a year and include deliberation of the Athenian Oath (https://www.nlc.org/the-athenian-oath), development of solutions to societal dilemmas, individual and team projects, and clarification for how each of us wants to leave our legacy. The first class is invitation only. Participation involves three in person meetings, with some development work in between. Two of the meetings are affiliated with conferences I regularly attend, including one that will be in Vancouver, WA. The third is a separate one-week gathering in Virginia next June. I figured out how to rework next year to accommodate the time and money involved and I’d like to participate in the program. People invited are mid to late career professionals who have completed programs like the Senior Executive Institute at the University of Virginia, Leadership ICMA, and the Harvard Seniors Executives in State and Local Government Program. I’m going to learn as much from the other participants as I will from the materials we cover, the challenges we take on, and the self-reflection involved in the program. I want to continue to develop towards my professional potential and this program appears to be a good fit in that direction. Please let me know if you have any concerns. It would end in the spring of 2020.